Friday, October 14, 2011

[ZESTCaste] Mirchpur votes half-heartedly

Mirchpur(Hisar) : Mirchpur, the infamous village in Narnaund that hasbeen in the news for the last one year, registered a low voter turnoutin the Hisar bypoll on Thursday. The low turnout is being attributedto none of the contesting candidates having visited the village duringthe run-up to the bypoll.

The only sign that elections are taking place was visible in thevillage school, where the presence of extra security and a hum drum ofpeople marked polling by Jat voters. The voting percentage, however,remained about 50 per cent — much less than the constituency's averageof over 68 per cent.

Separate booths had been set up in areas, where majority of the voterswere Dalits. In three such polling stations set up, the numbers ofvotes polled were even less — by 4 pm, Dalits had polled only about 36per cent votes.

The village had hit national headlines in April 2010 when an elderlyDalit, Tara Chand, and his physically-challenged daughter were burntto death after a crowd of the dominant Jat community burnt downbalmisi houses in a fit of rage. The incident brought AICC generalsecretary Rahul Gandhi to the village, as also several other stateleaders.

However, in the run up to the elections, the candidates chose toignore the village fearing a dilution of the Jat and non-Jat votebank. "None of the contestants wanted to be associated with either ofthe two groups, as the matter has been politicised a lot," said alocal.

Following a stark caste divisions in the village, the villagers hadheld a panchayat meeting, in which it was decided that the issue willnot be allowed to be politicised any further. The Jats of the villageare unhappy with both the Congress and the Indian National Lok Dal forhaving not done enough for the over 100 Jats who were arrestedfollowing the incident. The Balmikis, on the other hand, are nursing agrudge that majority of these accused have managed to go scot free.They have been alleging that they continue to be ostracised by theJats.

A special trial court will hear arguments on the sentence of the 15found guilty for the Mirchpur deaths on Friday. As many as 82 of theaccused were released after the court said that it has found nothingagainst them. While three of the accused were found guilty underSection 304 of the IPC, 12 will get off with lighter sentences.